


We've Got You

by MaddieandChimney



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, tw: mentions death, tw: mentions vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Hen and Maddie comfort Chimney in the aftermath of the guilt he feels over Shannon's death.
Relationships: Howie "Chimney" Han & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8
Collections: Madney One-Shots





	We've Got You

She knows it must be bad because it’s two in the morning and she’s woken up by the light sound of her vibrating phone. She’s awake, her entire body shaking when she sees Hen’s name is the one disturbing her sleep, which means it _has_ to be bad because she’s not sure the woman has ever called her before. She’s sure Buck wasn’t on shift tonight, which means…

“H-Hen?”

“Maddie… I’m sorry, I know it’s late… I just didn’t know who else to call.” There’s a panic in her voice, enough for Maddie to start scrambling out of bed already, barely paying any attention to anything other than the sound of the voice on the other end of the phone, “It’s Chimney, he’s—I’ve never seen him like this before and I just, I don’t know what he needs or if you coming around is the best thing. I know you’re taking a moment or whatever but-he’s drunk and crying and vomiting…”

Maddie doesn’t say anything, too busy trying to get her shoes on in a rush, grabbing Chimney’s jacket he had left at her apartment before… before they decided to officially date and everything else had happened. “I’m sorry I called, I shouldn’t have. I just know you’ve seen him—you’ve seen the anxiety before a-and you’re on a break, or whatever, I shouldn’t have called.”

Hen sounds like she’s going to cry, and although Maddie doesn’t know her well, she can feel the unusualness of this situation. “N-no, sorry, I’m getting-“ She grunts as she throws his jacket on, being the first thing to hand after she’d spent the night sobbing into it (it still smelt a little like him), “I’ll be there in ten.”

“Okay, okay… great.”

“Hen?” She hears a sound on the other end, “Thank you for calling me.”

It takes eight minutes to get to Chimney’s apartment, which is a new record, but she doesn’t have time to think about it before she’s running up the stairs to his apartment. She’s relieved to see the door unlocked, but not so relieved by the sound of retching coming from his bathroom the moment she enters the apartment. The last time she had been there, he had told her they were taking a moment – a moment from being in a relationship, she reminds herself, she can still be his friend.

It physically hurts when she walks to the bathroom, listening to Hen telling Chimney there was nothing he could have done different that would have had a better outcome. She knows what happened, Buck had phoned her and she had been tempted to call or text Chimney to ask if he was okay. The twinge of guilt almost stops her from making her presence known, wishing she had taken the initiative in the first place. “Oh, Chim…”

She drops to her knees, on the opposite side from Hen, a hand on his back. When he looks at her, she wants to burst into tears because there’s so much guilt and pain on his face, he looks as though he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and he’s exhausted. She should have known, because he feels things so deeply, she should have picked up the phone when she first thought of him. “Maddie?” His voice is weak, traces of dried tears on his cheeks quickly replaced by fresh ones before he shifts his body, hiding his face in her neck. She doesn’t mind the stench of vomit, or the fact he’s sobbing into her shoulder.

His grip tightens on her (his) jacket and her eyes desperately seek Hen’s, who looks about ready to burst into tears at any given moment. “I-I killed… I killed her. I killed her.” She wasn’t there, but she’s heard Buck’s side of things, she knows the facts and she knows that the man she’s holding in her arms right then is a _good_ man who would never do any harm to anyone. So, she knows everything he’s feeling right then is temporary, that he will eventually realise he did the right thing, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less to hear the self-loathing in his voice.

It doesn’t make it any easier to know she could have been there for him earlier, instead of when things had gotten too much.

“Why are you both here? I don’t… I don’t deserve this, you, I don’t—you shouldn’t be here.” Listening to him breaks her heart, one hand rubbing his back as her other hand runs through his hair, wishing she could somehow take away all the pain. Wishing there was something she could say to make it all better but she knows him well enough to know he’ll carry at least some of the guilt with him for the rest of his life, even when he knows there was nothing else to be done.

She’s glad when Hen speaks, because she’s at a loss, “We’re your friends, we love you, we want to be here for you. You’d do it for us, just let us be here, okay?” He tenses, but then he nods and Maddie finds herself relaxing a little; he was going through an existential crisis but she still worried that he wouldn’t want _her_ there. Things were never going to be the same between them, but she missed him. She missed him popping over with food and another film he absolutely insisted was a ‘classic’ every single time. She missed how patient he was, how he’d once told her his calendar was wide open, how even lying in a hospital bed after being stabbed by her husband, he still worried about her.

He worried about everyone other than himself.

“Do you think maybe you’ll be okay to get to the bedroom?” Maddie puts on her best ‘nursing voice’, her lips, on instinct, pressing against the top of his head, trying not to read too much into it when his entire body relaxes and he lets out a breath she hadn’t realised he was holding.

It takes both her and Hen to get him up from the floor, “Eddie’s going to hate me,” He whispers, “I’d hate me. I hate me.” She’s glad he doesn’t tower over her in the way her brother does or the way her husband once did, it means it’s easy to wrap an arm around his waist and let him lean into her as Hen gently wipes at the drying vomit around his lips, “Eddie doesn’t hate you.”

She finds herself nodding in agreement, but the tears have started falling down his cheeks once again, and she hates the way his chest is rising and falling rapidly, and she knows he’s thinking about it again. Running through it step by step, replaying everything he could have done or said differently. She hates how he doubts himself, to the point where she knows he’s pretended to be someone else to please other people in the past, he’s admitted that much. “And you shouldn’t hate you, either. You made a decision, you gave Eddie a chance to say what he needed to say or hear what he needed to hear.”

She pauses, “But it doesn’t matter what we say right now, you’ve already got it in your head… so, we’re going to stay, right Hen?” She looks over at the woman who is smiling at the two of them, ever so slightly, before she nods her head. “You can have tonight to let it all out and then… hopefully tomorrow, you’ll see things differently and if you don’t… then we’ll still be here. I’ll still be here.”

The words are enough to at least get him to start moving forward, his grip on Maddie and then Hen tightening as they direct him in the direction of his bedroom. “I’ll go get some water and a waste basket, just in case.” Hen affectionately pats his shoulder before she leaves the room, and it’s the first time she’s been alone with him since their extremely awkward date. “I’m going to help you get changed, okay?”

“That’s mine.” He pulls on her jacket, a glimmer of a smile on his lips, reaching his eyes only when she blushes. Her fingers still move to the bottom of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head as he lifts his arms to appease her. She tries not to think about the fact she’s seeing him half-naked for the first time, it’s most definitely not the right moment, not when he’s vulnerable, not when they’re taking a moment (being around him, looking at him, she really hopes more than anything that it is only a moment and not forever). She can’t meet his eyes as he kicks off his bottoms, “You want me to keep these on?” He motions to his boxers, breaking the tension between them when she laughs.

“Did you get vomit on them?” He shakes his head in response, smiling, a hand moving to her cheek before he quickly drops it as though she’s burnt him.

“I don’t deserve to be happy after what I did. Eddie… Christopher, they’re not happy right now. I shouldn’t be…”

“It’s okay, let’s just get you into bed…” She longs more than anything to make him see how kind, how good he really is. She wishes there were words she could say to him to just make it all stop, but there’s no magic fix.

“Gonna lay with me?” There’s a pain in his voice that leaves her longing to do anything she can to help him, and if that means laying with him as he’s done for her so many times, she’ll happily do so. Even just as friends, even just for a moment. Once he’s settled, she slips the jacket off, realising for the first time that she’s still in her pyjamas, in her rush to get to him. He’s the first man in a long time that she’s run towards, and not from.

It only takes a moment to crawl into the bed next to him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder, “Hope you’ve left room for me.” Can be heard before Hen shifts into the space on the other side of Chimney, “Just don’t throw up on me.”

“No promises.” Hen’s hand moves to his, and she finds herself snuggling into his back, Maddie’s hands softly run through his hair, whispering words of comfort in his ear, words neither women are sure he’s really listening to or even believes, especially not when his eyes close and he murmurs, “I’m sorry, I’m too weak to be Captain… Bobby would have done better. Anyone would have done better.”

Her eyes seek out Hen’s, seeing the wetness around her eyes for the first time as she bites down on her lip, both shaking their heads, resolved not to say anything as they hold him instead, deciding to let him talk it out. “I-I could have done better, I could have… things could have been different. If I had just— or maybe… maybe if I had… c-could have stopped Eddie’s suffering.”

“You eased his suffering.” Hen tries to remind him, breaking the silence of the two women first, as Maddie kisses his forehead, and then his nose, her thumb gently wiping away the tears. They’re just friends, but her heart aches in a way that leaves her longing for more, knowing she can’t, not right then.

When he bursts into tears, sobs wracking his body, she can only hold him closer, hoping that them being there for him whilst he cries is enough to make him realise was no better decision. “You’re okay, we got you. You’re going to be okay.”


End file.
